1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a person tracking method and apparatus using a robot, and more particularly to a method and an apparatus for detecting a person from an input image and tracking the motion of the detected person using a robot.
2. Description of Related Art
Recently, a robot has been spotlighted as a system to replace humans for simple tasks in a home or in a place hard to access in person. Currently, the function of the robot is only to perform simple repeated tasks. A prerequisite for performing more intelligent works is an interaction with the person who employs the robot. For smooth interaction, the robot needs to be able to locate and track the user so that it stays in the vicinity of the user.
One way a robot can locate and track a user is by face detection. Most existing face detecting devices locate a person indoors or outdoors using a method of storing a background image and then detecting motion of the person using a difference image obtained by subtracting the background image from the input image, or a method of tracking the location of the person using only shape information. The method using the difference image between the input image and the background image is very efficient in a case of using a fixed camera, but not for a continuously moving camera arranged in a robot, because the background image continuously changes. On the other hand, the method using the shape information of the person takes a long time to locate the person by matching a plurality of model images, similar to a person shape, to the whole input image.